The Savage Dance
by Scottenkainen
Summary: Can Doc Savage and his men solve the riddle of the living Mickey Mouse?


Oct. 2, 1955. Disneyland City.

"Wow," Long Tom said.

"It truly is remarkable, isn't it?" Doc Savage said to his friend and  
aide. "I had observed them briefly when I tried to help the  
Guardians last month, but this is the first chance we've had to  
really examine them since the Mystic Mullah returned for a  
rematch."

Doc Savage, "Long" Tom Roberts, Renny Renwick, and "Monk" Mayfair all  
stood around a pair of chairs where Mickey and Minnie Mouse were  
sitting. The two living cartoons looked uncomfortable and embarrassed  
and held onto their seats tightly. They both had wires hooked up to  
them at various points and banks of machines on either side of them  
monitored and recorded their condition. As they turned this way and  
that to look around, one could see they were no more than a fifth of  
an inch thick.

"We could find out so much more with our equipment back in New York,"  
Ham said. "Explain to me again why we're doing this out here in  
California?"

"Don't complain so much," Renny said. "The Superhero Clubhouse's lab  
is still state-of-the-art...even if that is behind what we're used to  
working with."

"As indebted as we are to the Guardians for letting us use their  
laboratory," Doc Savage interjected, "the real reason we're here is  
that we don't understand what's holding these two beings together  
and, until we do, we can't rule out that it the geography here is  
somehow important."

"Right," Monk said, more excitedly. "The analysis I made from their  
samples shows simple organic compounds -- nothing like blood, bone, or  
anything like that. These things shouldn't be able to stand and  
walk!"

"I've talked to Ub Iwerks a couple of times," Renny said. "He  
insists that it's magic. I've thought about pumping some truth serum  
into him..."

"My readings show a low-level electrical field surrounding both of  
them. I'm sure that's animating them somehow," Long Tom  
offered, "but I'll be darned if I can explain how. I wish you'd let  
me run a mild shock through them, Doc, and see what it does."

"The encephalograph readings show they're in distress already," Doc  
said. "Not that it should be possible since they don't have brains  
per se, but I'm hesitant to do anything else that might cause them  
pain or discomfort until we understand better the nature of their  
existence."

Just then, Minnie Mouse stood up and jumped out of her chair. The  
adhesives holding wires to her body slipped off.

"Where do you--?" Monk started to say to Minnie as he reached out to  
grab her. After Minnie Mouse escaped and ran across the room, Mickey Mouse also broke free of his bonds. The two ran towards each other and began dancing to unheard music.

"Do you still want us to grab them?" Monk asked Doc.

"It certainly appears that they aren't trying to escape," Doc  
responded. "They seem to have begun re-enacting another old Disney  
cartoon, as they've been observed doing in the past. I wonder if the  
stress of our experiments triggered this reaction, or if the event is  
entirely random, devoid of external stimuli...?"

"Maybe they just like to dance a lot," Long Tom joked.

"They seem harmless enough," Renny admitted.

Mickey Mouse, though, proved a less-than harmless dance partner for  
Minnie. He was clumsy, awkward, and constantly tripping her. After  
several minutes, Minnie's legs began to contort as if her shins were  
trying to avoid Mickey's knees. Doc's assistants, as jaded and  
experienced as they were, recoiled at the sight of this unnatural  
behavior. Had she bones in her legs, she clearly would have broken  
them all. As they watched on, Minnie's legs twisted even more  
unnaturally until they actually tied into a knot.

"All right, this has gone far enough..." Doc said.

Monk looked on, rubbed his chin, and thought this looked familiar for  
some reason.

Doc moved to help Minnie, but was unprepared for her ability to run  
even with her legs tied in a knot. She ran to a nearby table. Monk  
suddenly remembered why.

"Don't let her get the scissors!" Monk yelled.

Monk tried to reach her, and Tom and Renny were jolted out of just  
standing there as well, but Doc beat them all to Minnie's side,  
grasped her outstretched arm with one powerful fist, then wrestled  
the scissors out of her hand with the other.

"Quick thinking, Monk," Doc said. "I hate to think why she wanted  
the scissors."

"Right," Monk said, excited by the compliment, "As I was watching  
them dance, I remembered seeing an old Mickey Mouse cartoon once,  
maybe the only one where Mickey was a bad dancer. Minnie's legs got  
knotted and the sight gag was that she simply cut them off with a  
pair of scissors."

"So Monk used to like Mikey Mouse cartoons. Wait until I tell  
Ham..." Tom said.

"You do, and I'll let you have one," Monk said, shaking his fist.

"What do we do with them now?" Renny asked.

"It's clear to me," Doc said, "that as long as they continue to act out  
their old cartoons, their actions will be a danger to themselves and  
others. I'm going to recommend further incarceration."

Mickey Mouse ran to the corner of the room, sat down, and began to cry.

"Do you think he understands what's going to happen to him?" Tom asked.

"Naw," Monk said. "The cartoon is 'The Barn Dance.' Minnie would have  
just jilted Mickey to dance with Pete. Mickey cries at the end."

"Were you in tears too?" Renny asked.

"Why, you two..."


End file.
